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Sunday, January 29, 2012

Wet Wet Wet

And mosquitos by the score. I do hate it when you splat one and blood goes everywhere.....eeew. So gross it makes me feel sick. Yuk, urg, gak.

Yuk, Fence post with spiders etc. trying to stay dry

Whine, whine, rant and rave!

Our city is full of small floods, just one year on from the massive inundation we had, and the questions arise yet again - what is our stupid State Government and Council doing to alleviate flooding? Nada, nothing, zero. Seems to me that having a good old dig of a lot of the storm water drains and little creeks would go a looong way towards getting the runoff water away so that people don't have flooded houses? One street in our suburb goes under every single time there is high rainfall - now, f'rinstance. The houses are opposite the creek. The creek is notorious for flooding at the best of times.

Strikes me that it is lack of foresight and planning at the bottom of all this. The State have been sooo happy to embrace all the new housing estates (of which there are literally hundreds) but have not given the slightest thought to what happens to the rainwater once we have mega loads of new buildings. Even the regulations about guttering and drains leave a lot to be desired. Why, oh why, do the builders put these piddling little gutters on our houses? They are just too small to cope with the downpour - and it isn't as though nobody knew! Gee whiz, we are so close to sub-tropical it isn't funny, so the rain we get during Summer is going to be heavy - obviously! We all seem to have weency guttering which starts to overflow and flood after the first 10 minutes of a regular downpour. Where is the sense in that? Let's have some brains about this, builders, and planners too - larger capacity for the gutters and downpipes, twice to three times the size for the storm water drains as well?

The water all ends up in the bay anyway, let's get it there faster, and help ease some of the flooding people are experiencing - some have had their houses go under 4 times in 5 years - I bet you that if it was the Mayor's house something would be done in a huge hurry?

The Councils all have their hands out for the extra dollars from new housing and industrial areas - so maybe some of the new dollars should be spent helping householders! Not bloody likely I guess. There are a lot of fingers being pointed at the ones who take care of the dams and the overflow - why not look in your own back yard as well?

My back yard? As usual we have runoff from the whole street above us - which is blocked from running anywhere else because of how our neighbour has developed his land. Makes me want to scream and cry and rant really. We have a home sewerage treatment plant - and we had a dumb plumber who dug right down to install it. Consequence of that? A big dip which instantly fills with water. We had a duck happily swimming around in it a few days ago. Which isn't at all unusual in the wet.

Everything squelches, everything stinks of mud. The grass is so wet you can't mow, and even if you could you would get bogged instantly. Sigh. And there is more on the way. I am not a fan of the wet!

Everything inside is damp, hang on..... no it's ok, just checked to see if I had mouldy armpits!

Brisbane City

Outside there is a monster concert of frogs and toads, crickets and cicadas - what they have to be happy about I will never know. When you walk outside the noise is deafening! I am sure they just think it is great - but at the same time we seem to play host to many of their offspring who spring off and come inside. Try chasing a common froglet around at 1.30a.m. Those little skunks can jump six feet or more! Just when you think you have him - squirt! Off he goes out of the gap between your fingers. AFTER he has piddled on your hand, mind. Swine.